This view of the twilight sky and Martian horizon taken by NASA's Curiosity Mars rover includes Earth as the brightest point of light in the night sky. Earth is a little left of center in the image, and our moon is just below Earth.

This frame from an animation from NASA's Mars rover Curiosity shows the rover drilling into rock target 'Cumberland.' The drilling was performed during the 279th Martian day, or sol, of the Curiosity's work on Mars (May 19, 2013).

This image from the Mars Hand Lens Imager on NASA's Mars rover Curiosity shows the patch of rock cleaned by the first use of the rover's Dust Removal Tool (DRT). The tool is a motorized, wire-bristle brush on the turret at the end of the rover's arm.

The two bodies in this portion of an evening-sky view by NASA's Mars rover Curiosity are Earth and Earth's moon. The rover's Mast Camera (Mastcam) imaged them in the twilight sky of Curiosity's 529th Martian day, or sol (Jan. 31, 2014).

NASA's Mars rover Curiosity has detected sulfur, chlorine, and oxygen compounds in fine grains scooped by the rover at a wind drift site called 'Rocknest.' The grains were heated and analyzed using the rover's Sample Analysis at Mars instrument suite.

This graph compares the elemental composition of typical soils at three landing regions on Mars: Gusev Crater, from Spirit; Meridiani Planum, from Opportunity; and now Gale Crater, where NASA's newest Curiosity rover is currently investigating.

This collage shows the variety of soils found at landing sites on Mars. The elemental composition of the typical, reddish soils were investigated by NASA's Viking, Pathfinder and Mars Exploration Rover missions, and now with the Curiosity rover.

NASA's Mars rover Curiosity acquired close-up views of sands in the 'Rocknest' wind drift to document the nature of the material that the rover scooped, sieved and delivered to the CheMin and SAM instruments in October and November 2012.

This is a view of the third (left) and fourth (right) trenches made by the 1.6-inch-wide (4-centimeter-wide) scoop on NASA's Mars rover Curiosity in October 2012 and shows some of the details regarding the properties of the 'Rocknest' wind drift sand.

This graph compares a typical daily pattern of changing atmospheric pressure (blue) with the pattern during a regional dust storm hundreds of miles away (red). The data are by the Rover Environmental Monitoring Station (REMS) on NASA's Curiosity rover.

The image, which has been white-balanced to show what the rocks and soils in it would look like if they were on Earth, is a mosaic of images taken at a site called 'Rocknest' while NASA's Mars rover Curiosity was working.

This view of a Martian rock called "Rocknest 3" combines four images taken by the right-eye camera of the Mast Camera (Mastcam) instrument. The image has been white-balanced to show what the rock would look like if it were on Earth.

This view of a rock called 'Rocknest 3' combines two images taken by the Chemistry and Camera (ChemCam) instrument on the NASA Mars rover Curiosity and indicates five spots where ChemCam had hit the rock with laser pulses to check its composition.

NASA's Mars rover Curiosity drove 6.2 feet (1.9 meters) during the 100th Martian day, or sol, of the mission (Nov. 16, 2012). The rover used its Navigation Camera after the drive to record the images combined into this 3-D panoramic view.

NASA's Mars rover Curiosity drove 6.2 feet (1.9 meters) during the 100th Martian day, or sol, of the mission (Nov. 16, 2012). The view spans from north at the left to south-southeast at the right. It is presented in a cylindrical projection.

NASA's Mars rover Curiosity drove 83 feet eastward during the 102nd Martian day, or sol, of the mission (Nov. 18, 2012). At the end of the drive, Curiosity's view was toward 'Yellowknife Bay' in the 'Glenelg' area of Gale Crater.

NASA's Mars rover Curiosity used a mechanism on its robotic arm to dig up five scoopfuls of material from a patch of dusty sand called 'Rocknest,' producing the five bite-mark pits visible in this image from the rover's left Navigation Camera (Navcam).

This graph shows the atmospheric pressure at the surface of Mars, as measured by the Rover Environmental Monitoring Station on NASA's Curiosity rover. Pressure is a measure of the amount of air in the whole column of atmosphere sitting above the rover.

Twenty-one times during the first 12 weeks that NASA's Mars rover Curiosity worked on Mars, the rover's Rover Environmental Monitoring Station (REMS) detected brief dips in air pressure that could be caused by a passing whirlwind.

This graphic shows the pattern of winds predicted to be swirling around and inside Gale Crater, where NASA's Curiosity rover landed on Mars. Modeling the winds gives scientists a context for the data from Curiosity's Rover Environmental Monitoring Station